Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-01-13
IN THE YELLOWSTONE.
Spectacular Beauty of the Mammoth Hot
Springs Terrace

Springs Terrace
San Francisco Chronicle.
The rotUnday was like a stock-ex-
change In pantomine, and we were glad
to get out of it into the fine twilight and
TO walk up TO one of the wonders of the
Yellowstone, the Mammoth hot spring
which lies but few rods from the hotel
There loomed pyramid almost as white
as snow; a succession of low terraces one
above another climb the hill slope to the
height of two hundred feet. It is a giant
stairway Of alabaster, but moist and
warm. It is frothing cataract turned to
stone, but still sweating over the subter-
ranean furnaces, so that tivulets of hot
water trickle everywhere and make the
whole to glisten like frosted silver. At
the summit is a crown of dark pines. A
few Of these weird, Yoiceful trees spring
solitary among the terraces as if they had
paused on second thought and taken
root in the midst of the tepid rills. Won
derful to behold were some of these vaga-
bond pines. The water that boils within
the basins among the terraces finds its
way to the surface through deep-lying
cretaceous strata.
Thin vapOrs, sometimes increasing to
volumes of steam, float hither and yon,
bearing with them a cloud of calcareous
particles, and these are continuously de-
posted upon every object in reach. The
thick boughs of the pines absorb this
yapor, and IN the course of time the trees
have become so saturated with the -four
white mineral dust that they seem to be
crusted with frost.
The trunks of the trees on the side
next the springs have barks that look
sugar-coated, and dead twigs that have
blown into the edge Of the pools are like
the twigs of midwinter-c in ice that
forms in tropical heat and never melts
away. At the Cleopatra spring, upon a
terrace forty feet in height and covering
three quarters of an acre, the deposit is
unusually rapid, and for this reason the
spring is utilized for the purpose of en-
crushing the various articles that are sold
as curloslties and soVenirs in the valley.
The spring has temperature of 154 de-
grees at the edge, but in every basin that
is fed directly by hot spring the tenn
perature increases rapidly as one ap-
proaches the source, and the streams
that flow from the basin retain an agree
able warmth even at considerable dis
lance from the main terrace. At the
Cleopatra spring bottles are sunk or
hung under the dripping water between
the shallow terraces, and in four days
ninety-six hours they are covered with
calcareous deposit to the depth of one
sixteenth of an inch. Ornaments made
Of twisted wire after a suitable oath in
this marvellous spring, emerge like bits
of branch coral. The amuletic horseshoe
is in great demand. horseshoe that
is sown in corruption, ragged, rusty,
dusty and with the nails still twisted in
it, is raised in corruption, thing of i'm
maculate beauty, and a Joy forever. In
very truth the materialized ghost of
horseshoe.
If you are making the tour of the park
let me advise you to deposit your sovex
irs in the Cleopatra spring on the day of
your arrival, and when you are ready to
depart you will find them whittier than
snow. Every terrace of the hot springs
is ledge covered with pools, like foun-
tain basins, most of them very shallow,
but few of them quite deep. Of all
these basins no two are just alike. Out
Of their own waters they build up a rim
which grows slowly with the continuous
deposit and assumes shapes almost as
delicate and varied as flower petals. And
these are stained as flower petals; all the
most delicate tints of salmon, pink,
brown, green, and yellow, and aesthetic
shades are blended deliciously. It is as
if wine had flowed from one chalice-like
basin; as if fancy ices had melted and
run down the beautifully nodded brims
of others, painting them with rainbow
creams and making them appear exquis-
itely fragile and almost fairy like.
Now that New Zealand has lost her
painted terraces = for that terrible acct
dent shattered them to atoms-the sight
seer must come to the Yellowstone valley
for a glimpse of nature, so uncommon
that it seems supernatural.
In certain lights the mammoth hot
springs terrace is as unearthly in its
specular beauty as the transformation
scene in Christmas panaOmime, and by
moonlight it is the ladder of Jacobs
dream minus the heavenly hvsts-the an
gels ascending and descending. Alas! It
is the hardened globe trotter, with bogus
alpenstock, who climbs over the main
terrace and boots at his fellows from the
summit thereof. He hears the subter=
ranean torrents gurgling far beneath
him; he leaps the chasms from which as
cend blank, tottering walls of steam; he
treads ankle deep in warm water, and
brushes beneath his feet many a frag-
ment of lace-like texture with which the
whole terrace is strewed. Surely he would
battle there if he dared, for the pools are
natural baths, and the Maoris of New
Zealand know the efficacy of such baths
as these.
But we are in an enlightened land,
among the highly cultured and for baths
we must repair to the lite wooden sweat
boxes nicely arranged in a row near the
hotel and here pay our quarter of a dol
lar for more limited artificial accommo-
datlons.
Curiosity Hunting.